labor

The economic empowerment of women is gaining prominence in the development agenda. It is reflected in Millennium Development Goal 3 and will be the focus of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2012. Expanding women’s access to income generating opportunities is a key part of this objective. An important starting point is to understand where women work.

Two figures based on data from household and labor force surveys in 137 low- and middle-income countries help answer this question. Figure 1, focused only on women, reports the shares active in different types of employment. Figure 2, focused on the nonagricultural labor force (male and female), reports the share of workers in each employment category who are women. Thus the first shows the distribution of women across types of work, and the second the differences in the rates at which men and women are active in the same type of employment.